1992!Going through albums and scanning photos and organizing them, I began to realize that this year and the following really were the Golden Age of Tom's and my life in Alabama. Huckleberry had matured and was healthy and full of energy. Tom and I were both in good health, and we had successfully adjusted to rural living. His older sister Norma seemed to be coping well with life alone in Las Cruces, and the needs of my own older relatives had not yet started to weigh heavily on our lives.

Tom would turn 70 later in the year. He was in good shape physically, he was happy with his life in Alabama, he was glad no longer to have to deal with the rigors of movie publicity, and he reveled in the affections of Huck. Of course she reveled right back! I can't say that she loved him more than she did me, but I had always been the constant presence and for those first couple of years Tom and been the one to come and go. She was delighted now to have him on more nearly a fulltime basis. Of course there were the occasional trips he made to Las Cruces, San Antonio, and Penn Valley CA to see his three sisters (and on some of those trips I accompanied him, with my cousin from the May Farm and my sister taking care of Huck).

I believe that I see in Tom's face in the pictures during this period signs of that happiness. More joy, less worry. That would begin to change, particularly in 1994.

And I was happy too. This photo was taken in February. We are sitting on one of Huck's sheets. During this time we had not yet been introduced to the wonderful medication developed at Auburn University that when applied monthly would kill fleas and ticks should they bite. In addition to helping cut down on the amount of those that would otherwise have settled into the carpeting, the sheets also caught a lot of that hair that was shed. Huck quickly learned that sheets were Her Place, and she was happy to settle down on them no matter where we placed them. We'd take them outside and shake them at least once a day, and a couple of times a week there would be a doggy-sheet washing.

It was especially nice when someone would settle down on the sheet with her. A lot of loving and a lot of grooming took place on those sheets. She liked the white sheets well enough, but her special favorite seemed to be a dark blue/light blue/ red one with a bold pattern, and you will see that one in various shots throughout. I am still amazed at how much hair she had and how little grew on my head. I'd have to comb her constantly. I haven't had to comb my head since I started razoring it down to the skin early on after my return to Alabama. (There really wasn't that much to razor!)

Spring returns on schedule. Tom and Huck are standing under the flowering crabapple that grew just north of the patio. Usually we called it the bird tree, for birds loved to use it as a safe station from which to fly down to nearby feeders. We loved the blooms in the spring, and the goats loved the sour crabapples when we'd rake them up after they had fallen and take them down to the woods.

Spring also meant spring cleaning, particularly the porch furniture and pads which we would take outside and dust off and hose down as necessary. All that hair! All that accumulated spring pollen! Huckleberry initially would show signs of anxiety that her stuff was being dragged off the porch, but she would quickly start to enjoy the whole experience.

Here are more pictures of that spring of 1992:

Yes, those green-striped awnings look pretty grungy, but as promised they will be replaced. An early summer thunderstorm brought large hail which damaged the roof (and frightened Huck, all that banging from above) , and when my insurance agent took a look he immediately wrote a check for full replacement. The old roof shingles had been green, but we replaced them with dark gray ones and then replaced the old green awnings with blue and gray striped ones. Here's Huck in the front yard close to a stack of roofing shingles with the cover weighted down by rolls of the tarpaper that would go underneath them. She found the whole process fairly intriguing, but we tended to keep her inside the house when the workers were busy: she did tend to get in the way. Most of the climbing onto the roof took place on the west side of the house, and she was able to keep watch through the dining room window.

But not all summer was work. We had plenty of play time as well.

A slideshow of summer:

You might be a tad curious as to how reliable my dates are for these pictures. Pretty good, actually. Many of the photos were dated by Tom, usually with a note as to which numbered roll of film they were from and which shot they were on the roll. This practice was a holdover from his movie publicity days, when part of his duties involved keeping close track of movie stills and identifying what they represented. Later on, particularly in the Roscoe years, dates were harder to establish, and that led to groupings by larger swatches of time instead of by year. I am glad that we have a fairly adequate timeline for the Huckleberry years: it pleases me, or saddens me, or both to be able to keep track of the effects of the passage of time on the three of us. And time does have its way.As I write this, I am acutely aware that 6 years ago from this moment I was sitting by Tom's bed at the hospital in Tuscaloosa holding his hand and talking to him quietly as he lay dying. A little over an hour later he was gone.

But I rush ahead of my story. At this time Tom was very much alive and enjoying life hugely. We're moving into fall now. The dogwood is covered with red leaves and the fronds of the yew are turning brown and falling off. Lots of raking caused by that. I did try to keep that area raked because the sharp, hard fronds could cause Huck pain if she stepped on them.

Definitely fall, for we've got a stack of firewood already on the patio. And firewood means chipmunks! Obviously there is already one in that woodpile.I am surprised at how few snapshots I have of Tom wearing a cap. He loved caps and had lots of them and wore them frequently.The Bradford pear in the background was beautiful in the fall with its incredibly variegated colored leaves. And it was functional! One night a car heading south went out of control and crashed into the tree, and had it not been there it would have crashed into our car in the garage. The tree lost one large section then, and in a later hurricane more of it went. Some time after that I decided to have it taken down, I left a tall stump, just in case!

She is still after that chipmunk!The "bird tree" has lost most of its leaves by now. In later years the limbs on the south side began to press against the patio roof and I would have to climb up and cut them off. Eventually it began dying in sections, and rot began to affect the root system. I managed to take it down myself, its fall being exactly between fence and side of house, just where it was supposed to fall.Once the Bradford pear was down and ones I had planted in the front yard were gone, I was careful to eradicate any new growth from the roots. This is not a native species, and it can become quite invasive if not controlled. Hardy as all get-out.

Here I am all dolled up for a wedding or a funeral, those being the only occasions for which I would deign to put on a jacket and tie. It was probably a funeral, for there were very few weddings I would attend.

Some more images of that fall:

And after fall, cold weather and Christmas and the winding down of life outside. But all of us did like being inside by the fire. New Year's Eve is on the way, and as is our wont, we will go to bed at the usual time and sleep right through, unless we are awaked by firecracker noises in the neighborhood.